My thoughts on the (incurious) case of the Holtzclaw trial
Whew. So, I finally said something that’d been nagging at the corners of my mind the other day, and I feel… less shytty. But still, shytty. You see, it’s because of a certain fuckboy whose last name rhymes with “wouldn’t last a second in Crenshaw”, but he’s just one smaller element of this entire dilemma. This dilemma, of course, being the blatant attack on women of color as well as systemic disregard for them. He’s most certainly not the only fuckboy on my mind, either, although I’ve seen a brilliant writer weigh in on the subject. Just a disclaimer: trigger warning, as this content delves into the issue of rape and sexual assault. I’ll spare the details of these encounters, because I’m not disturbed.
So, let’s begin. The criminally-neglected story of Daniel “wouldn’t last a second in Crenshaw” reads like something out of a cop thriller (I’m certain this fiasco will inspire episodes in several television dramas thirsty for ratings), with the first known account spanning back to 2013. The M.O. is the same, with “wouldn’t last a second in Crenshaw” stopping the victims he encountered and later coercing them into sex. “Coerce” of course, sounds too clinical; it’s obvious that what he did qualifies as rape, with the grim details of each event painting a man abusing his influence in a twisted power fantasy.
“Wouldn’t last a second in Crenshaw”, as it turns out, specifically targeted Black women in the relatively impoverished areas he patrolled. These women that he searched for had histories with law enforcement; most were addicts, for instance. They were women he could intimidate by using their records as leverage against them, done primarily through the threat of jail time if they refused to submit to his commands. “Wouldn’t last a second in Crenshaw”, of course, was protected; his tale is just one of nearly 1,000 reported cases of sexual misconduct unveiled in a recent study that share the same telltale victims; mostly women in poor socio-economic standing with addictions or a prior history with law enforcement, who’d be reluctant to report their cases to the police because of their background.
With the jury’s deliberation on a verdict now transcending three days, along with a campaign by the media and his defenders pulling virtually every known trick in the book to discredit these women, it’s grossly apparent why they were initially reluctant to come forward with their own testimonies to police. Their stories contradict the horror movie narratives with lily (white) women being ravaged by menacing strangers. They are very human, flawed, and due to their previous history, exist outside of the mainstream collective understanding of innocence.
Nothing perhaps was more sickening than watching these women, the victims of his crimes, appear in court in jail attire while the predator himself was allowed to attend in a suit. Reports of these women having their past unearthed in an attempt to cast doubt on their credibility swarmed the net, and so we’ve seen these poor women’s lives and dignity cross-examined, forced to relive their deepest pains underneath the scrutiny of the public eye. After countless posts in which the credibility of these women was discarded, “Wouldn’t last a second in Crenshaw” has been declared guilty on eighteen of the original thirty six counts.
I wish I could say I was happy, but that would require me to ignore that this fuckboy would not have been caught and would likely still be preying exclusively on poor Black women if he’d not fucked up and stopped one woman who didn’t have a history he could dangle over her head. I can be elated that the women whose livelihoods were ruined will have some semblance of closure, but I have to remain wary and vigilant, as we live in a system that routinely preys on disadvantaged women of color and protects their oppressors. There are many Holtzclaws out there, with just as many victims too frightened to speak up for themselves because of a system that erases their humanity.
Remember that.
